Jail, or gaol (especially in Canada, Australia and NZ1), remand prison, is a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the state. This includes either accused persons awaiting trial or for those who have been convicted of a crime and are serving a sentence of less than one year. Jails are generally small penitentiaries run by individual counties and cities, though some jails in larger communities may be as large and hold as many inmates as regular prisons. "Jail" is also a synonym for "prison" in most countries (excluding the United States), especially when the facility is of a similar size as a correctional facility. As with prisons, some jails have different wings for certain types of offenders, and have work programs for inmates who demonstrate good behavior.

Resocialization

main: Resocialization

Resocialization is a sociological concept dealing with the process of mentally and emotionally "re-training" a person so that he or she can operate in an environment other than that which he or she is accustomed to. Resocialization into a total institution involves a complete change of personality. Key examples include the process of resocializing new recruits into the military so that they can operate as soldiers (or, in other words, as members of a cohesive unit) and the reverse process, in which those who have become accustomed to such roles return to society after military .

United States

Jails in the United States are different from prisons. Jails are typically operated by city or county governments, and house prisoners who are being detained before trial or serving sentences less than one year.. Approximately half of the U.S. jail population consists of pretrial detainees who have not been convicted or sentenced. Prisoners serving terms longer than one year are typically housed in correctional facilities operated by state governments. Unlike most state prisons, a jail usually houses both men and women in separate portions of the same facility. Some jails lease space to house inmates from the federal government, state prisons or from other counties for profit.

In 2005, a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 62 percent of people in jails have not been convicted, meaning many of them are awaiting trial. As of 2005, local jails held or supervised 819,434 individuals. Nine percent of these individuals were in programs such as community service, work release, weekend reporting, electronic monitoring, and other alternative programs.

In the United States, as compared to regular 'mainline' state and federal prisons, in which prisoners have already been investigated and classified by corrections personnel before being assigned to a level of security, in which many of the prisoners are committed for longer periods of time, and in which the population is on average older, jails usually house prisoners who are on average younger and have varying or unknown histories and propensities for violence or disciplinary problems. As a result, many jails operate their booking and receiving units at a relatively high level of correctional security, and also witness a disproportionately large amount of violence and disciplinary problems as compared to mainline facilities.